double down

dealbreakers are a good thing.

they're the line that separates the safe from the suspicious to sever ties with the severe. on a basic level, boundaries must be drawn. limitations don't exactly evoke imagery of liberty, but that's what it exactly allows. it's the space from our center to our outer limits that determine the freedoms we enjoy. we forget that when we focus solely on things that prevent us from doing what we want.

there's value in pushing boundaries. but that entails compromise. of course, depending on your willingness for work and sensitivity for suffering, you can deliberate on whether your determination of what is a dealbreaker is worth keeping. expansion has both costs and benefits.

there's value in putting your foot down. but that entails commitment. it takes an extended exertion of energy in having the guts to say when enough is enough, mean it, and follow through with it. depending on how deep one thing has gotten into you, the harder it is to pull them out. elimination has both costs and benefits.

we have to recognize that evil exists among us and we'll never get rid of it. the best we can do is to protect ourselves from them instead of pretending it's an artificial construct that we can wish away if we pray hard enough. evil is inescapable because evil is within ourselves. it'd be delusional to think that we can be absolutely pure and good. we are individuals with personal interests that sometimes clash, with courses of actions that we don't always agree on, and with outcomes that are occasionally accidental. it could very well be random, it could very well be by intelligent design by something beyond us. but fact of the matter is - it's there - and if we can't control neither the cause nor the result, then the best we can do is to control the variables we're inputting to a formula that nobody has figured out yet.